LONELINESS AND OLDER ADULTS: RESULTS FROM A COMMUNITY-BASED INTERVENTION

Abstract The number of older adults identifying themselves as lonely has increased during the last two years as they have struggled with the impact of the pandemic on their perceptions of relationships with others. Recent research has shown that the negative health implications of loneliness are similar to those found with smoking or obesity. Most current interventions continue with past practice by adding people to engage with the older adult, although research suggests that while this intervention addresses social isolation, it does not address loneliness directly. Information regarding the development and implementation of a loneliness intervention with older adults based on the Health Beliefs Model in one rural mid-west county will be presented. Participants were recipients of home-delivered meals and had volunteered for a project that provided peer-to-peer instruction to improve digital literacy. In addition to technology training sessions, participants received a weekly contact from a separate volunteer as a friendly ‘check-in.’ Beginning in the fourth week, brief 5-10 minute coaching sessions about loneliness were included in these weekly contacts. The presentation will include details of the loneliness content, and describe training and support provided to the volunteers. Interviews were conducted with participants at baseline, approximately three months, and at the end of contact with each participant. Results showed no statistically significant change in loneliness, but participants reported they saw potential usefulness for the content with family and friends and potentially themselves in the future. They also provided helpful suggestions for revision. Plans for revision will be presented.

and using pre-(2018/19) and during pandemic data (June/ July 2020 and November/December 2020), we found that overall, older adults who were already experiencing social isolation prior to the pandemic (isolated group) experienced a larger rise in loneliness and drop in social contact during the pandemic than older adults who were previously socially connected (non-isolated group).Results are robust even when we account for the fact that respondents socially isolated (including those not married and with infrequent contact with relatives and friends) felt lonelier and less supported even before the pandemic, and when we adjust for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.Expanding on this work with post-pandemic data collected between October 2021 and March 2023, this paper describes loneliness, social contact, and social support pre-, during, and post-COVID-19 pandemic and investigates whether and to what extent trends in social well-being continued to diverge between the isolated and non-isolated groups.The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected society and the economy worldwide.By the end of 2021, most legal COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in England, pushing society into a post-pandemic phase.However, it remains unclear whether the post-pandemic world has convalesced, particularly with regard to socioeconomic circumstances among older people.According to the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), the percentage of employment among older people aged 50 years and above living in England decreased dramatically from 24.9% in 2018/9 to 17.6% in June/July 2020 and 19.8% in November/December 2020.Preliminary results from data collected between October 2021 and November 2022 suggest that post-pandemic the percentage of older people in paid work bounced back to pre-pandemic levels.Nevertheless, the post-pandemic financial status was worse than that before the pandemic.Whereas approximately 22% of respondents were worried about the future financial situation during the pandemic, this prevalence increased to nearly 30% in 2021/2.Moreover, there is an indication that some groups (including those with low education; those in routine and manual occupations; and those living alone) fared worse in the post-pandemic times.Overall, despite some evidence suggesting that the employment of English older people has bounced back to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, their financial situation seems to have deteriorated, most likely reflecting also the current rising cost of living and financial crisis in the UK.

SOCIAL CONNECTIONS, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIAL ISOLATION
Abstract citation ID: igad104.1380The number of older adults identifying themselves as lonely has increased during the last two years as they have struggled with the impact of the pandemic on their perceptions of relationships with others.Recent research has shown that the negative health implications of loneliness are similar to those found with smoking or obesity.Most current interventions continue with past practice by adding people to engage with the older adult, although research suggests that while this intervention addresses social isolation, it does not address loneliness directly.Information regarding the development and implementation of a loneliness intervention with older adults based on the Health Beliefs Model in one rural mid-west county will be presented.Participants were recipients of home-delivered meals and had volunteered for a project that provided peer-to-peer instruction to improve digital literacy.In addition to technology training sessions, participants received a weekly contact from a separate volunteer as a friendly 'check-in.'Beginning in the fourth week, brief 5-10 minute coaching sessions about loneliness were included in these weekly contacts.The presentation will include details of the loneliness content, and describe training and support provided to the volunteers.Interviews were conducted with participants at baseline, approximately three months, and at the end of contact with each participant.Results showed no statistically significant change in loneliness, but participants reported they saw potential usefulness for the content with family and friends and potentially themselves in the future.They also provided helpful suggestions for revision.Plans for revision will be presented.

LONELINESS AND OLDER ADULTS: RESULTS FROM A COMMUNITY-BASED INTERVENTION
Abstract citation ID: igad104.1381

PEER-BASED CHECK-IN SUPPORT AND PERSONAL AGENCY IN TANGIBLE INTERFACE DESIGN FOR REDUCING ISOLATION IN OLDER ADULTS
Pallabi Bhowmick, and Lesa Huber, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, Indiana, United States About one in four older adults in the US are socially isolated, an issue worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.The aims of a 2-week diary study and field deployment of a peerbased tangible check-in system with 16 participants aged 65 to 87 were to understand how older adults check-in with others, who they check-in with, what difficulties they face, and how technology can help them stay connected.Findings show that perceived check-in behavior varies from actual check-in behavior.Although participants listed family as their strongest relationships forming the closest social circle, 75% of the participants had up to third-quarters of their communication with friends as compared to all other relationships.Secondly, passive check-in and monitoring from family members make older adults non-participatory recipients of care and takes away human agency.The check-in system allowed participants to actively check-in on their peers.Participants found the technology non-stigmatizing and bonded with each other quickly.Finally, older adults prefer tangible interfaces, such as buttons and physical controls over digital interfaces, because they do not require fine motor skills or visual acuity.Tangible systems can provide familiar, intuitive, and accessible systems by leveraging everyday physical objects as user interfaces.Study participants found the tangible check-in system easy and enjoyable to use.Such tangible peer-based systems improve social connectedness, address ageism by restoring agency, meet accessibility and aesthetic needs, thereby encouraging technology adoption.They also empower older adults to maintain their independence, instill in them a strong sense of community, and improve quality of life.

SINGLE-TIE CORE NETWORKS AMONG OLDER EUROPEANS: A POSITION OF PRECARITY AND LONELINESS?
Haosen Sun 1 , Jina Lee 2 , and Markus Schafer 3 , 1. UNR School of Public Health,Reno,Nevada,United States,2. University of Toronto,Toronto,Ontario,Canada,3. Baylor University,Waco,Texas,United States The problems of late-life social isolation and loneliness prompt significant concern.Individuals who have core personal networks limited to a single connection may be especially susceptible to loneliness, particularly when that connection is no longer available.The present research considers: 1) how prevalent such single-tie networks are and who is most likely to embed in them; 2) whether older adults in single-tie networks are more lonely than people with more expanded network forms; and 3) whether such networks put people at highest of loneliness in the event of network member loss.Using ego-centric network data from Waves 4 (2011) and Wave 6 (2015) of the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we conduct lagged dependent variable logistic regressions.Results show that a total of 28.2% of older Europeans rely on a single person as an important personal tie.Among those maintaining a single-tie network, spouses are the most common choice (62.4%), followed by a child (15.2%), a relative (8.5%), and a non-relative (13.8%).Factors significantly associated with holding different types of single-tie networks include age, gender, education, financial pressure, rural residence, participation in social activities, and grandparental roles.Child-only networks are significantly associated with greater levels of loneliness compared to multi-tie networks.Meanwhile, the loss of a partner as the only connection is associated with significantly increased loneliness, even after considering possible network additions.Future research should investigate how to better protect older adults in precarious network settings, especially during network losses.